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THE 

>LD MAN IN THE CORNER 
"TRAVELS THE MYSTERY OF 
THE RUSSIAN PRINCE 
AND OF 

DOG’S TOOTH CLIFF 


BARONESS ORGZY 


NEW YORK 

GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 






COPYRIGHT, 1924, 

BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY. 






THE OLD MAN IN THE CORNER 
— B — 

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



THE MYSTERY OF THE 
RUSSIAN PRINCE 


i 

f 

£ 


T HERE had been a great deal of talk about that 
time, in newspapers and amongst the public, 
of the difficulty an inexperienced criminal finds 
in disposing of the evidences of his crime—notably, of 
course, of the body of his victim. In no case, perhaps, 
was this difficulty so completely overcome—at any rate, 
so far as was publicly known—as in that of the murder 
of the individual known as Prince Orsoff. I am thus 
qualifying his title, because, as a matter of fact, the 
larger public never believed that he was a genuine 
prince—Russian or otherwise—and that even if he had 
not come by such a violent and tragic death the Smith- 
sons would never have seen either their ten thousand 
pounds again, or poor Louisa’s aristocratic bride¬ 
groom. 

I had been thinking a great deal about this mys¬ 
terious affair, and it was with deliberate intent that I 
walked over to Fleet Street one afternoon, in order to 
catch the Old Man in the Corner in his accustomed 
teashop, and get him to give me his views on the sub¬ 
ject of the mystery that to this very day surrounds the 
murder of the Russian prince. 

“Let me just put the whole case before you,” the 
funny creature began, as soon as I had led him to talk 
upon the subject, “as far as it was known to the gen- 


4 


THE OLD MAN IN THE CORNER 


eral public. It all occurred in Folkestone, you re¬ 
member, where the wedding of Louisa Smithson, the 
daughter of a late retired grocer, to a Russian prince 
whom she had met abroad, was the talk of the town. 

“It was on a lovely day in May, and the wedding 
ceremony was to take place at Holy Trinity Church. 
The Smithsons—mother and daughter—especially since 
they had come into a fortune, were very well known in 
Folkestone, and there was a large crowd of relatives 
and friends inside the church, and another out in the 
street to watch the arrival of guests and to see the 
bride. There were camera men and newspaper men, 
and hundreds of idlers and visitors, and the police 
had much ado to keep the crowd in order. 

“Mrs. Smithson had already arrived, looking gor¬ 
geous in what I understand is known as amethyst 
crepe-de-Chine, and there was a marvellous array of 
Bond Street gowns and gorgeous headgear, all of which 
kept the lookers-on fully occupied during the traditional 
quarter of an hour’s grace usually accorded to the 
bride. 

“But presently those fifteen minutes became twenty. 
The clergy had long since arrived, the bridesmaids were 
waiting in the porch; but there was no bridegroom! 
Neither he nor his best man had arrived; and now it 
was half an hour after the time appointed for the 
ceremony—and, oh, horror! the bride’s car was in 
sight. The bride in church waiting for the bridegroom! 
Such an outrage had not been witnessed in Folkstone 
within the memory of the oldest inhabitant. 

“One of the guests went at once to break the news 


THE MYSTERY OF THE RUSSIAN PRINCE 5 

to the elderly relative who had arranged to give the 
bride away, and who was with her in the car, whilst 
another, a Mr. Sutherland Ford, jumped into the first 
available taxi, having volunteered to go to the station 
in order to ascertain whether there had been any break¬ 
down on the line, as the bridegroom was coming down 
by train from London with his best man. 

“The bride, hastily apprised of the extraordinary 
contretemps, remained in the car, with the blinds pulled 
down, well concealed from the prying eyes of the 
crowd, while the fashionable guests, relatives, and 
friends had perforce to possess their souls in patience. 

“And presently the news fell like a bombshell in the 
midst of this lively throng. A taxi drove up, and from 
it alighted first Mr. Sutherland Ford, who had volun¬ 
teered to go to the station for information, and then 
John and Henry Carter, the two latter beautifully got 
up in frock-coats, striped trousers, top-hats, and 
flowers in their buttonholes, looking obviously like be¬ 
lated wedding-guests. But still no bridegroom and no 
best man. 

“The three gentlemen, paying no heed to the shower 
of questions that assailed them as soon as they had 
jumped out of the taxi, ran straight into the church, 
leaving every one’s curiosity unsatisfied and public 
excitement at fever pitch. 

“‘That was John and Henry Carter!’ the ladies 
whispered agitatedly. ‘Fancy their being asked to the 
wedding!’ 

“And those who were in the know whispered to those 
who were less favoured that young Henry had at one 


6 


THE OLD MAN IN THE CORNER 


time been engaged to Louisa Smithson, before she 
met her Russian prince, and that when she threw him 
over he was in such dire despair that his friends thought 
he would commit suicide. 

“A moment or two later Mrs. Smithson was seen 
hurriedly coming out of church, her face pale and 
drawn, and her beautiful hat all awry. She made 
straight for the bride’s car, stepped into it, and the car 
immediately drove off, whilst the wedding-guests 
trooped out of the church, and the terrible news spread 
like wildfire through the crowd, and was presently all 
over the town. 

“It seems that when the midday train, London to 
Folkestone, stopped at Swanley Junction, two pas¬ 
sengers who were about to enter a first-class compart¬ 
ment in one of the corridor carriages were horrified 
to find it in a terrible state of disorder. They hastily 
called the guard, and on examination the carriage 
looked indeed as if it had been the scene of a violent 
struggle. The door on the off-side was unlatched, two 
of the window straps were wrenched off, the anti¬ 
macassars were torn off the cushions, one of the lug¬ 
gage racks was broken, and the net hung down in 
strips, and over some of the cushions were marks un¬ 
mistakably made by a blood-stained hand. 

“The guard immediately locked the compartment 
and sent for the local police. No one was allowed in 
or out of the station until every passenger on the 
train had satisfied the police as to his or her identity. 
Thus, the train was held up for over two hours whilst 
preliminary investigations were going on. 


THE MYSTERY OF THE RUSSIAN PRINCE 7 

“There appeared no doubt that a terrible murder 
had been committed, and telephonic communication 
all along the line presently established the fact that it 
must have been done somewhere in the neighbourhood 
of Sydenham Hill, because a group of men who were 
at work on the ‘up’ side of the line at Penge, when 
the down train came out of the tunnel, noticed that 
the door of one of the first-class carriages was open. 
It swung to again just before the train steamed through 
the station. 

“A preliminary search was at once made in and about 
the tunel; it revealed on the platform of Sydenham 
Hill Station a first-class single ticket of that day’s issue, 
London to Folkestone, crushed and stained with blood, 
and on the permanent way, close to the entrance of the 
tunnel on the Penge side, a soft black hat, and a broken 
pair of pince-nez. But as to the identity of the victim 
there was, for the moment, no clue. 

“After a couple of wearisome and anxious hours 
the passengers were allowed to proceed on their jour¬ 
ney. Among these passengers, it appears, were John 
and Henry Carter, who were on their way to the Smith- 
son wedding. Until they arrived in Folkestone they 
had no more idea than the police who the victim of 
the mysterious train murder was; but in the station 
they caught side of Mr. Sutherland Ford, whom they 
knew slightly. Mr. Ford was making agitated in¬ 
quiries as to any possible accident on the line. The 
Carters put him au fait with what had occurred, and 
as there was no sign of the Russian prince amongst 
the passengers who had just arrived, all three men 


8 


THE OLD MAN IN THE CORNER 


came to the horrifying conclusion that it was indeed 
the bridegroom elect who had been murdered. 

“They communicated at once with the police, and 
there were more investigations and telephonic mes¬ 
sages up and down the line, before the Carters and 
Mr. Ford were at last allowed to proceed to the church 
and break the awful news to those most directly con¬ 
cerned. 

“And in this tragic fashion did Louisa Smithson’s 
wedding-day draw to its end; nor, so far as the public 
was concerned, was the mystery of that terrible murder 
ever satisfactorily cleared up. The local police worked 
very hard and very systematically, but though, pres¬ 
ently, they also had the help of one of the ablest detec¬ 
tives from Scotland Yard, nothing was seen or found 
that gave the slightest clue either as to the means 
which the murderer or murderers adopted for remov¬ 
ing the body of their victim, or in what manner they 
made good their escape. The body of the Russian 
prince was never found, and as far as the public knows, 
the murderer is still at large, and although as time went 
on, many strange facts came to light, they only helped 
to plunge that extraordinary crime into darker mys¬ 
tery. 

“The facts in themselves were curious enough, you 
will admit,” the Old Man in the Corner went on, after 
a while. “Many of these were never known to the 
public, whilst others found their way into the columns 
of the sensational press, who battened on the ‘Mystery 
of the Russian Prince’ for weeks on end, and as far as 
the unfortunate Smithsons were concerned, there was 


THE MYSTERY OF THE RUSSIAN PRINCE 9 

not a reader of the Express Post and kindred news¬ 
papers who did not know the whole of their family 
history. 

“It seems that Louisa Smithson is the daughter of 
a grocer in Folkestone, who had retired from business 
just before the war, and with his wife and his only 
child led a meagre and obscure existence in a tiny house 
in Warren Avenue somewhere near the tram road. 
They were always supposed to be very poor, but sud¬ 
denly old Smithson died, and it turned out that he had 
been a miser, for he left the handsome little fortune of 
fifteen thousand pounds to be equally divided between 
his daughter and his widow. 

“At once Mrs. Smithson and Louisa found them¬ 
selves the centre of an admiring throng of friends and 
relatives all eager to help them spend their money for 
their especial benefit; but Mrs. Smithson was shrewd 
enough not to allow herself to be exploited by those 
who, in the past, had never condescended to more than 
a bowing acquaintance with her. She turned her back 
on most of those sycophants, but at the same time she 
was determined to do the best for herself and for 
Louisa, and to this end she admitted into her councils 
her sister, Margaret Penny, who was saleswoman at 
a fashionable shop in London, and who immediately 
advised a journey up to town, so that the question of 
clothes might at once be satisfactorily settled. 

“In addition to valuable advice on that score, this 
Miss Penny seems to have succeeded in completely 
turning her sister’s head. Certain it is that Mrs. Smith- 
son left Folkestone a quiet, sensible, motherly woman, 


10 THE OLD MAN IN THE CORNER 


and that she returned six weeks later an arrogant, ill- 
mannered parvenue, who seemed to think that the pos¬ 
session of a few thousand pounds entitled her to ride 
rough-shod over the feelings and sentiments of those 
who had less money than herself. 

“She began by taking a suite of rooms at the Splen- 
dide Hotel for herself, her daughter, and her maid. 
Then she sold her house in Warren Avenue, bought a 
car, and though she and Louisa were, of course, in deep 
mourning, they were to be seen everywhere in wonder¬ 
ful Bond Street dresses and marvellous feathered hats. 
Finally, they announced their intention of spending 
the coming winter on the Riviera, probably. Monte 
Carlo. 

“All this extravagant behaviour made some people 
smile. Others shrugged their shoulders and predicted 
disaster; but there was one who suffered acutely 
through this change in the fortune of the Smithsons. 
This was Henry Carter, a young clerk employed in an 
insurance office in London. He and his brother were 
Folkestone men, sons of a local tailor in a very small 
way of business, who had been one of old Smithson’s 
rare friends. The elder Carter boy had long since ‘cut 
his stick,’ and was said to be earning a living in Lon¬ 
don by free-lance journalism. The younger one, 
Henry, remained to help his father with the tailoring. 
He was a constant visitor in the little house in Warren 
Avenue, and presently became engaged to Louisa. 
There could be no question of an immediate marriage, 
of course, as Henry had neither money nor prospects. 
However, presently old Carter died, the tailoring busi- 


THE MYSTERY OF THE RUSSIAN PRINCE n 


ness was sold for a couple of hundred pounds, and 
Henry went up to London to join his brother and to 
seek his fortune. Presently, he obtained a post in an 
insurance office, but his engagement to Louisa sub¬ 
sisted; the young people were known to be deeply in 
love with one another, and Henry spent most week¬ 
ends and all his holidays in Folkestone in order to be 
near his girl. 

“Then came the change in the fortune of the Smith- 
sons, and an immediate coolness in Louisa’s manner 
towards young Henry. It was all very well in the past 
to be engaged to the son of a jobbing tailor, while 
one was poor oneself, and one had neither wit nor good 
looks, but now— 

“In fact, already when they were in London Mrs. 
Smithson had intimated to Henry Carter that his visits 
were none too welcome, and when he appealed to Louisa 
she put him off with a few curt words. The young 
man was in despair, and, indeed, his brother actually 
feared at one time that he would commit suicide. 

“It was soon after Christmas of that same year that 
the curtain was rung up on the first act of the mysteri¬ 
ous tragedy which was destined to throw a blight for 
ever after upon the life of Louisa Smithson. It began 
with the departure of herself and her mother for the 
Continent, where they intended to remain until the 
end of March. For the first few weeks their friends 
had no news of them, but presently Miss Margaret 
Penny, who had kept up a desultory correspondence 
with a pal of hers in Folkestone, started to give glow¬ 
ing accounts of the Smithsons’ doings in Monte Carlo. 


12 THE OLD MAN IN THE CORNER 


“They were staying at the Hotel de Paris, paying 
two hundred francs a day for their rooms alone. They 
were lunching and dining out every day of the week. 
They had been introduced to one or two of the august 
personages who usually graced the Riviera with their 
presence at this time of year, and they had met a num¬ 
ber of interesting people. According to Miss Penny’s 
account, Louisa Smithson was being greatly admired, 
and, in fact, several titled gentlemen of various nation¬ 
alities had professed themselves deeply enamoured of 
her. 

“All this Miss Penny recounted in her letters to her 
friends with a wealth of detail and a marvellous pro¬ 
fusion of adjectives, and finally in one of her letters 
there was mention of a certain Russian grandee— 
Prince Orsoff by name—who was paying Louisa 
marked attention. He, also, was staying at the Paris, 
appeared very wealthy, and was obviously of very high 
rank, for he never mixed with the crowd, which was 
more than usually brilliant this year in Monte Carlo. 
This exclusiveness on his part was all the more flatter¬ 
ing to the Smithsons, and when he apprised them of 
his intention to spend the season in London, they had 
asked him to come and visit them in Folkestone, where 
Mrs. Smithson intended to take a house presently, and 
there to entertain lavishly during the summer. 

“After this preliminary announcement from Miss 
Penny, Louisa herself wrote a letter to Henry Carter. 
It was quite a pleasant, chatty letter, telling him of 
their marvellous doings abroad and of her own social 
successes. It did not do more, however, than vaguely 


THE MYSTERY OF THE RUSSIAN PRINCE 13 

hint at the Russian prince, his distinguished appear¬ 
ance and obvious wealth. Nevertheless, it plunged the 
unfortunate young man into the utmost depths of 
despair, and according to his brother John’s subsequent 
account, the latter had a terrible time with young 
Henry that winter. John himself was very busy with 
journalistic work which kept him away sometimes for 
days and weeks on end from the little home in London 
which the two brothers had set up for themselves with 
the money derived from the sale of the tailoring busi¬ 
ness. And Henry’s state of mind did at times seri¬ 
ously alarm his brother, for he would either threaten 
to do away with himself, or vow that he would be even 
with that accursed foreigner. 

“At the end of March the Smithsons returned to 
England. During the interval Mrs. Smithson had made 
all arrangements for taking the Towers, a magnifi¬ 
cently-furnished house facing the Leas at Folkestone, 
and here she and Louisa installed themselves prepara¬ 
tory to launching their invitations for the various tea 
and tennis parties, dinners and dances which they pro¬ 
posed to give during the summer. 

“One might really quite truthfully say that the eyes 
of all Folkestone were fixed upon the two ladies, and, 
of course, every one was talking about the Russian 
prince, who—Mrs. Smithson had confided this to a 
bosom friend—was coming over to England for the 
express purpose of proposing to Louisa. 

“There was quite a flutter of excitement on a 
memorable Friday afternoon when it was rumoured 
that Henry Carter had come down for a week-end, and 


14 THE OLD MAN IN THE CORNER 

had put up at a small hotel down by the harbour. Of 
course, he had come to see Louisa Smithson; every one 
knew that, and no doubt he wished to make a final 
appeal to her love for him which could not be entirely 
dead yet. 

“Within twenty-four hours, however, it was common 
gossip that young Henry had presented himself at the 
Towers and been refused admittance. The ladies were 
out, the butler said, and he did not know when they 
would be home. This was on the Saturday. On 
the Sunday Henry walked about on the Leas all the 
morning, in the hope of seeing Louisa or her mother, 
and as he failed to do so he called again in the early 
part of the afternoon; he was told the ladies were rest¬ 
ing. Later he came again, and the ladies had gone 
out; and on the Monday, as presumably business called 
him back to town, he left by the early morning train 
without having seen his former fiancee. Indeed, people 
from that moment took it for granted that young 
Henry had formally been given his conge. 

“Towards the middle of April, Prince Orsoff arrived 
in London. Within two days he telephoned to Mrs. 
Smithson to ask her when he might come to pay his 
respects. A day was fixed, and he came to the Towers 
to lunch. He came again, and at his third visit he 
formally proposed to Miss Louisa Smithson, and was 
accepted. The wedding was to take place almost im¬ 
mediately, and the very next day the exciting announce¬ 
ment had gone the round of the Smithsons’ large circle 
of friends—not only in Folkestone but also in London. 


THE MYSTERY OF THE RUSSIAN PRINCE 15 

“The effect of the news appears to have been stagger¬ 
ing as far as the unfortunate Henry Carter was con¬ 
cerned. In the picturesque language of Mrs. Hicks, 
the middle-aged charlady who ‘did’ for the two brothers 
in their little home in Chelsea, ‘ ’e carried on some¬ 
thing awful.’ She even went so far as to say that she 
feared he might ‘put ’is ’ead in the gas oven,’ and that 
as Mr. John was away at the time, she took the pre¬ 
caution every day when she left to turn the gas off at 
the meter. 

“The following week-end Henry came down to 
Folkestone, and again took up his quarters in the small 
hotel by the harbour. On the Saturday afternoon he 
called at the Towers, and refused to take ‘no’ for an 
answer when he asked to see Miss Smithson. Indeed, 
he seems literally to have pushed his way into the 
drawing-room where the ladies were having tea. Ac¬ 
cording to statements made subsequently by the butler, 
there ensued a terrible scene between Henry and his 
former fiancee, at the very height of which, as luck 
would have it, who should walk in but Prince Orsoff? 

“That elegant gentleman, however, seems to have be¬ 
haved on that trying occasion with perfect dignity and 
tact, making it his chief business to reassure the ladies, 
and paying no heed to Henry’s recriminations, which 
presently degenerated into vulgar abuse and ended in 
violent threats. At last, with the aid of the majestic 
butler, the young man was thrust out of the house, but 
even on the doorstep he turned and raised a menacing 
fist in the direction of Prince Orsoff, and said loudly 
enough for more than one person to hear: 


16 THE OLD MAN IN THE CORNER 


“ ‘Wait! I’ll be even with that accursed foreigner 
yet!’ 

“It must indeed have been a terrifying scene for 
two sensitive and refined ladies like Mrs. and Miss 
Smithson to witness. Later on, after the prince him¬ 
self had taken his leave, the butler was rung for by 
Mrs. Smithson, who told him that under no circum¬ 
stances was Mr. Henry Carter ever to be admitted 
inside the Towers. 

“However, a Sunday or two afterwards, Mr. John 
Carter called and Mrs. Smithson saw him. He said 
that he had come down expressly from London in 
order to apologise for his brother’s conduct. Henry, he 
said, was deeply contrite that he should thus have lost 
control over himself; his broken heart was his only 
excuse. After all, he had been, and still was, deeply 
in love with Louisa, and no man worth his salt could 
see the girl he loved turning her back on him without 
losing some of that equanimity which should, of course, 
be the characteristic of every gentleman. 

“In fact, Mr. John Carter spoke so well and so per¬ 
suasively that Mrs. Smithson and Louisa, who were at 
bottom quite a worthy pair of women, agreed to let 
bygones be bygones, and said that, if Henry would 
only behave himself in the future, there was no reason 
why he should not remain their friend. 

“This appeared a quite satisfactory state of things, 
and over in the little house in Chelsea, Mrs. Hicks 
gladly noted that ‘Mr. ’Enry seemed more like ’isself, 
afterwards.’ The very next week-end the two brothers 


THE MYSTERY OF THE RUSSIAN PRINCE 17 

went down to Folkestone together, and they called at 
the Towers so that Henry might offer his apologies in 
person. The two gentlemen on that ocacsion were 
actually asked to stay to tea. 

“Indeed, it seems as if Henry had entirely turned 
over a new leaf, and when presently the gracious invi¬ 
tation came for both brothers to come to the wedding, 
they equally graciously accepted. 

“The day fixed for the happy event was now ap¬ 
proaching. The large circle of acquaintances, friends, 
and hangers-on which the Smithsons had gathered 
around them were all agog with excitement, wedding 
presents were pouring in by every post. A kind of 
network of romance had been woven around the per¬ 
sonalities of the future bride, her mother, and the Rus¬ 
sian prince. The wealth of the Smithsons had been 
magnified a hundredfold, and Prince Orsoff was re¬ 
puted to be a brother of the late Tsar, who had made 
good his escape out of Russia, bringing away with him 
most of the Crown jewels, which he would presently 
bestow upon his wife. And so on, ad infinitum. 

“And upon the top of all that excitement and that 
gossip, and marvellous tales akin to the Arabian 
Nights, came the wedding day with its awful culmi¬ 
nating tragedy. 

“The Russian prince had been murdered, and his 
body so cleverly disposed of that, in spite of the most 
strenuous efforts on the part of the police, not a trace 
of it could be found. 

“That robbery had been the main motive of the 


18 THE OLD MAN IN THE CORNER 


crime was quickly enough established. The Smithsons 
—mother and daughter—had at once supplied the de¬ 
tective in charge of the case with proofs as to that. 

“It seems that as soon as the unfortunate prince 
had become engaged to Louisa, he asked that the 
marriage should take place without delay. He ex¬ 
plained that his dearest friend, Mr. Schumann, the 
great international financier, had offered him shares 
in one of the greatest post-war undertakings which 
had ever been floated in Europe, and which would 
bring in to the fortunate shareholders a net income of 
not less than ten thousand pounds yearly for every 
ten thousand pounds invested; Mr. Schumann himself 
owned one-half of all the shares, and had, by a most 
wonderful act of disinterested generosity, allowed his 
bosom friend, Prince Orsoff, to have a few, a conces¬ 
sion, by the way, which he had only granted to two 
other favoured personages, one being the Prince of 
Wales, and the other the President of the French Re¬ 
public. Of course, to receive ten thousand pounds 
yearly for every ten thousand pounds invested, was too 
wonderful for words; the President of the French Re¬ 
public had been so delighted with this chance of secur¬ 
ing a fortune that he had put two million francs into 
the concern, and the Prince of Wales had put in five 
hundred thousand pounds. 

“And it was so wonderfully secure, as obviously the 
British Government would not have allowed the Prince 
of Wales to invest such a sum of money if the busi¬ 
ness was only speculative. Security and fortune be¬ 
yond the dreams of thrift—it was positively dazzling! 


THE MYSTERY OF THE RUSSIAN PRINCE 19 

“No wonder that this vision of untold riches made 
poor Mrs. Smithson’s mouth water, the more so as she 
was quite shrewd enough to realise that, at the rate 
she was going, her share in the fifteen thousand pounds 
left by the late worthy grocer would soon fade into 
nothingness. In the past few months she and Louisa 
had spent considerably over four thousand pounds be¬ 
tween them, and once her daughter was married to a 
quasi-royal personage, good old Mrs. Smithson did not 
see herself retiring into comparative obscurity on a few 
hundreds a year, to be jeered at by all her friends. 

“So she and Louisa talked the matter over together, 
and then they talked it over with Prince Orsoff on the 
occasion of his visit about ten days before the wed¬ 
ding. The prince at first was very doubtful if the 
great Mr. Schumann would be willing to make a fur¬ 
ther sacrifice in the cause of friendship. He was an 
international financier accustomed to deal in millions; 
he would not look favourably—the prince feared—at a 
few thousands. Mrs. Smithson’s entire fortune now 
only consisted of about five thousand pounds; this she 
was unwilling to admit to the wealthy and aristocratic 
future son-in-law. So the two ladies decided to pool 
their capital, and then they begged that Prince Orsoff 
should ask the great Mr. Schumann whether he would 
condescend to receive ten thousand pounds for invest¬ 
ment in Mrs. Smithson’s name in his great undertaking. 

“Fortunately, the great financier did condescend to 
do this—he really was more a philanthropist than a 
business man—but of course he could not be kept wait¬ 
ing; the money must reach him in Paris not later than 


20 THE OLD MAN IN THE CORNER 


May 20th, which was the very day fixed for the wed¬ 
ding. 

“It was all terribly difficult, and Mrs. Smithson was 
at first in despair, as she feared she could not arrange 
to sell out her securities in time, and the difficulties 
were increased a hundredfold because, as Prince Orsoff 
explained to her, Mr. Schumann would even at the elev¬ 
enth hour refuse to allow her to participate in the huge 
fortune if he found that she had talked about the affair 
over in England. The business had to be kept a pro¬ 
found secret for international reasons; in fact, if any 
detail relating to the business and to Mr. Schumann’s 
participation in it were to become known, the whole of 
Europe would once more be plunged into war. 

“To make a long story short, Mrs. Smithson and 
Louisa sold out all their securities, amounting between 
them to ten thousand pounds. Then they went up to 
London, drew the money out of their bank, changed it 
themselves into French money so as to make it more 
convenient for Mr. Schumann, and handed the entire 
sum over to Prince Orsoff on the eve of the wedding. 

“Of course, such fatuous imbecility would be unbe¬ 
lievable if it did not occur so frequently, vain, silly 
women, who have never moved outside their own re¬ 
stricted circle, are always the ready prey of plausible 
rascals. 

“Anyway, in this case the Smithsons returned to 
Folkestone that day, perfectly happy and with never 
a thought of anything but contentment for the present 
and prosperity in the future. The wedding was to be 
the next day; the bridegroom-elect was coming down 


THE MYSTERY OF THE RUSSIAN PRINCE 21 

by the midday train with his best man, whom he 
vaguely described as secretary to the Russian Em¬ 
bassy, and the bridal pair would start for Paris by the 
afternoon boat. 

“All this the Smithsons related to the police-in¬ 
spector in charge of the case, and subsequently to the 
Scotland Yard detective, with a wealth of detail and 
a profusion of lamentations, not unmixed with exple¬ 
tives directed against the unknown assassin and thief. 
For, indeed, there was no doubt in the minds of Louisa 
and her mother that the unfortunate prince, on whom 
the girl still lavished the wealth of her trustful love, 
had been murdered for the sake of the money which 
he had upon his person. 

“At first Mrs. Smithson and Louisa fastened their 
suspicions upon the anonymous best man, the so-called 
secretary of the Russian Embassy. Even when they 
were presently made to realise that there was no such 
thing as a Russian Embassy in London these days, 
and that minute enquiries both at home and abroad 
regarding the identity of a Prince Orsoff led to no result 
whatever, they repudiated with scorn the suggestion 
put forth by the police that their beloved Russian 
prince was nothing more or less than a clever crook 
who had led them by the nose, and that in all proba¬ 
bility he had not been murdered in the train, but had 
succeeded in jumping out of it and making good his 
escape across country. 

“This the Smithson ladies would not admit for a 
moment, and with commendable logic they argued that 
if Prince Orsoff had been a crook and had intended to 


22 THE OLD MAN IN THE CORNER 


make away with their money he could have done that 
easily enough without getting into a train at Victoria 
and jumping out of it at Sydenham Hill. 

“Pressed with questions, however, the ladies were 
forced to admit that they knew absolutely nothing 
about Prince Orsoff. They had never been introduced 
to any of his relations, nor had they met any of his 
friends. They did not even know where he had been 
staying in London. He was in the habit of telephon¬ 
ing to Louisa every morning, and any arrangements for 
his visits down to the Towers, or the ladies’ trips up to 
town, were made in that manner. As a matter of fact, 
Louisa and her future husband had not met more than 
a dozen times altogether, on some five or six occasions 
in Monte Carlo, and not more than six in England. It 
had been a case of love at first sight. 

“On the occasion of their visit to London to draw 
out their money for the great undertaking he had met 
them at Victoria Station, and taken them to a quiet 
hotel in Kensington, where he had engaged a suite of 
rooms for them. All financial matters were then settled 
in their private sitting-room. 

“In answer to inquiries at that hotel, one or two of 
the employees distinctly remembered the foreign-look¬ 
ing gentleman who had called on Mrs. and Miss Smith- 
son, lunched with them in their sitting-room that day, 
and saw them into their cab when they went away the 
following afternoon. One or two of the station porters 
at Victoria also vaguely remembered a man who an¬ 
swered to the description given of Prince Orsoff by the 
Smithson ladies : tall, with a slight stoop, wearing pince- 


THE MYSTERY OF THE RUSSIAN PRINCE 23 

nez, and with a profusion of dark, curly hair, bushy 
eyebrows, long, dark moustache and old-fashioned 
imperial which made him distinctly noticeable. He 
could not very well have passed unperceived. 

“Unfortunately on the actual day of the murder not 
one man employed at Victoria Station could swear posi¬ 
tively to having seen him, either alone, or in the com¬ 
pany of another foreigner; and the latter has remained 
a problematical personage to this day. 

“But the Smithson ladies remained firm in their loy¬ 
alty to their Russian prince. Had they dared they 
would openly have accused Henry Carter of the mur¬ 
der; as it was, they threw out weird hints and insinua¬ 
tions about Henry who had more than once sworn 
that he would be even with his hated rival, and who 
had actually travelled down in the same train as the 
prince on that fateful wedding morning, together with 
his brother John, who, no doubt, helped him in his 
nefarious deed. I believe that the unfortunate ladies 
actually spent some of the money which now they could 
ill spare in employing a private detective to collect 
proofs of Henry Carter’s guilt. 

“But not a tittle of evidence could be brought against 
him. To begin with, the train in which the murder 
was supposed to have been committed was a non-stop 
to Swanley. Then how could the Carters have disposed 
of the body? The Smithsons suggested a third mis¬ 
creant as a possible confederate; but the same objec¬ 
tion against that theory subsisted in the shape of the 
disposal of the body. The murder—if murder there 
was—occurred in broad daylight in a part of the coun- 


24 THE OLD MAN IN THE CORNER 

try that certainly was not lonely. It was not possible 
to suppose that a man would stand waiting on the 
line close to Sydenham Hill Station until a body was 
flung out to him from the passing train, and then drag 
that body about until he found a suitable place in 
which to bury it; and all that without being seen by 
the workmen on the line, or employees on the railway, 
or, in fact, any passer-by. Therefore the hypothesis 
that Henry Carter or his brother murdered the Russian 
prince, with or without the help of a confederate, was 
as untenable as that the prince had travelled from Vic¬ 
toria to Sydenham Hill, and there jumped out of the 
train, at risk of being discovered in the act, rather than 
disappear quietly in London, shave off his luxuriant 
hair, or assume any other convenient disguise, until he 
found an opportunity for slipping back to the Conti¬ 
nent. 

“Thus the public was confronted with the two 
hypotheses, both of which led to a deadlock. No 
sensible person doubted that the so-called Russian 
prince was a crook, and that he had a confederate to 
help him in his clever plot, but the mystery remained 
as to how the rascal or rascals disappeared so com¬ 
pletely as to checkmate every investigation. The 
travelling by train that morning and setting the scene 
for a supposed murder was, of course, part of the plan, 
but it was the plan that was so baffling, because to an 
ordinary mind that disappearance could have been 
effected so much more easily and with far less risk 
without the train journey.” 

The Old Man in the Corner ceased talking, and be- 


THE MYSTERY OF THE RUSSIAN PRINCE 2 5 

came once more absorbed in his favourite task of mak¬ 
ing knots in a bit of string. 

“I see in the papers,” I now put in thoughtfully, 
“that Miss Louisa Smithson has overcome her grief for 
the loss of her aristocratic lover by returning to the 
plebeian one.” 

“Yes,” the funny creature replied drily, “she is 
marrying Henry Carter. Funny, isn’t it? But women 
are queer fish! One moment she looked on the man 
as a murderer; now, by marrying him, she actually 
proclaims her belief in his innocence.” 

“It certainly was abundantly proved,” I rejoined, 
“that Henry Carter could not possibly have murdered 
Prince Orsoff.” 

“It was also abundantly proved,” he retorted, “that 
no one else murdered the so-called prince.” 

“You think, of course, that he was an ordinary im¬ 
postor?” I asked. 

“An impostor, yes,” he replied, “but not an ordinary 
one. In fact, I take off my hat to as clever a pair of 
scamps as I have ever come across.” 

“A pair?” 

“Why, yes! It could not have been done alone!” 

“But the police—” 

“The police”—the spook-like creature broke in with 
a sharp cackle—“know more in this case than you give 
them credit for. They know well enough the solution 
of the puzzle which appears so baffling to the public, 
but they have not sufficient proof to effect an arrest. 
At one time they hoped that the scoundrels would 
presently make a false move and give themselves away, 


26 THE OLD MAN IN THE CORNER 

in which case they could be prosecuted for defrauding 
the Smithsons of ten thousand pounds, but this even¬ 
tuality has become complicated through the master¬ 
stroke of genius which made Henry Carter marry 
Louisa Smithson.” 

“Henry Carter?” I exclaimed. “Then you do think 
the Carters had something to do with the case?” 

“They had everything to do with the case. In fact, 
they planned the whole thing in a masterly manner.” 

“But the Russian prince at Monte Carlo?” I argued. 
“Who was he? If he was a confederate, where has he 
disappeared to?” 

“He is still engaged in free-lance journalism,” the 
Old Man in the Corner replied drily. “And in his 
spare moments changes parcels of French currency 
back into English notes.” 

“You mean the brother!” I ejaculated, with a gasp. 

“Of course I mean the brother,” he retorted drily. 
“Who else could have been so efficient a collaborator in 
the plot? John Carter was comparatively his own 
master. He lived with Henry in the small house in 
Chelsea, waited on by a charwoman who came by the 
day. It was generally given out that his reporting 
work took him frequently and for lengthy stays out 
of London. The brothers, remember, had inherited a 
few hundreds from their father, while the Smithsons 
had inherited a few thousands. We must suppose that 
the idea of relieving the ladies of those thousands oc¬ 
curred to them as soon as they realised that Louisa, 
egged on by her mother, would cold-shoulder her fiance. 

“John Carter, mind you, must be a very clever man, 


THE MYSTERY OF THE RUSSIAN PRINCE 27 

else he could not have carried out all the details of the 
plot with so much sang-froid. We have been told, if 
you remember, that he had early in life ‘cut his stick/ 
and gone to seek fortune in London; therefore, the 
Smithsons, who had never been out of Folkestone, did 
not know him intimately. His make-up as the prince 
must have been very good, and his histrionic powers 
not to be despised; his profession and life in London 
no doubt helped him in these matters. Then, remem¬ 
ber also that he took very good care not to be a great 
deal in the Smithsons’ company. Even in Monte Carlo 
he only let them see him less than half a dozen times, 
and as soon as he came to England he hurried on the 
wedding as much as he could. 

“Another fine stroke was Henry’s apparent despair 
at being cut out of Louisa’s affections, and his threats 
against his successful rival; it helped to draw suspicion 
on himself—suspicion which the scoundrels took good 
care could easily be disproved. Then take a pair of 
vain, credulous unintelligent women and a smart rascal 
who knows how to flatter them, and you will see how 
easily the whole plot could be worked. Finally, when 
John Carter had obtained possession of the money, he 
and Henry arranged the supposed tragedy in the train 
and the Russian prince’s disappearance from the world 
as suddenly as he had entered it.” 

I thought the matter over for a moment or two. The 
solution of the mystery certainly appealed to my dra¬ 
matic sense. 

“But,” I said at last, “one wonders why the Carters 
took the trouble to arrange a scene of a supposed 


28 THE OLD MAN IN THE CORNER 


murder in the train; they might quite well have been 
caught in the act, and in any case it was an additional 
unnecessary risk. John Carter might quite well have 
been content to shed his role of Russian prince without 
such an elaborate setting.” 

■“Well,” he admitted, “in some ways you are right 
there; but it is always difficult to gauge accurately the 
mentality of a clever scoundrel. In this case I don’t 
suppose that the Carters had quite made up their minds 
about what they would do when they left London, but 
that the plan was in their heads is proved by the hat, 
pince-nez, and railway ticket which they took with 
them when they started, and which, if you remember, 
were found on the line; but it was probably only be¬ 
cause the coach containing their compartment was 
empty, and they had both time and opportunity in 
the non-stop train, that they decided to carry their 
clever comedy through. 

“Then think what an immense advantage in their 
future plans would be the Smithsons’ belief in the 
death of their prince. Probably Louisa would never 
have dreamed of marrying if she thought her aristo¬ 
cratic lover were an impostor and still alive; she would 
never have let the matter rest, her mind would for ever 
have been busy with trying to trace him, and bring 
him back, repentant to her feet. You know what 
women are when they are in love with that type of 
scoundrel; they cling to them with the tenacity of a 
leech. But once she believed the man to be dead, 
Louisa Smithson gradually got over her grief, and 
Henry Carter wooed and won her on the rebound. She 


THE MYSTERY OF THE RUSSIAN PRINCE 29 

was poor now, and her friends had quickly enough de¬ 
serted her. She was touched by the fidelity of her 
simple lover, and he thus consolidated his position and 
made the future secure. 

“Anyway,” the Old Man in the Corner concluded, “I 
believe that it was with a view to making a future mar¬ 
riage possible between Louisa and Henry that the two 
brothers organised the supposed murder. Probably, if 
the train had been full, and they had seen danger in the 
undertaking, they would not have done it. But the 
mise en scene was easily enough set, and it certainly 
was an additional safeguard. Now, in another week 
or so, Louisa Smithson will be Henry Carter’s wife, 
and presently you will find that John, in London, and 
Henry and his wife will be quite comfortably off. And 
after that, whatever suspicions Mrs. Smithson may 
have of the truth, her lips will have to remain sealed. 
She could not very well prosecute her only child’s 
husband. 

“And so the matter will always remain a mystery to 
the public; but the police know more than they are 
able to admit because they have no proof. 

“And now they never will have. But as to the 
murder in the train—well, the murdered man never 
existed!” 


THE MYSTERY OF DOG’S 
TOOTH CLIFF 


HE Old Man in the Corner was more than 



usually loquacious that day; he had a great 


A deal to say on the subject of the strictures 
which a learned judge levelled against the police in a 
recent murder case. 

“Well deserved/’ he concluded, with his usual self- 
opinionated emphasis, “but not more so in this case 
than in many others, where blunder after blunder is 
committed and the time of the courts wasted without 
either judge or magistrate, let alone the police, know¬ 
ing where the hitch lies.” 

“Of course, you always know,” I remarked dryly. 

“Nearly always,” he replied, with ludicrous self- 
complacence. “Have I not proved to you over and 
over again that with a little reasonable common-sense 
and a minimum of logic there is no such thing as an 
impenetrable mystery in criminology. Criminology is 
an exact science to which certain rules of reasoning in¬ 
variably apply. The trouble is that so few are masters 
of logic and that fewer still know how to apply its 
rules. Now take the case of that poor girl, Janet 
Smith. We are likely to see some startling develop¬ 
ments in it within the next two or three days. You’ll 
see if we don’t, and they will open the eyes of the 


THE MYSTERY OF DOG’S TOOTH CLIFF 31 

police and public alike to what has been clear as day¬ 
light to me ever since the first day of the inquest.” 

I hastened to assure the whimsical creature that 
though I was acquainted with the main circumstances 
of the tragedy, I was very vague as to detail, and 
that nothing would give me greater pleasure than that 
he should enlighten my mind on the subject—which he 
immediately proceeded to do. 

“You know Broxmouth, don’t you,” he began, after 
a while, “on the Wessex coast? It is a growing place, 
for the scenery is superb, and the air acts on jaded 
spirits like sparkling wine. The only drawback—that 
is from an artistic point of view—to the place is that 
hideous barrack-like building on the West Cliff. It is 
a huge industrial school recently erected and endowed 
by the trustees of the Woodforde bequest, for the bene¬ 
fit of sons of temporary officers killed in the war, and 
is under the presidency of no less a personage than 
General Sir Arkwright Jones, who has a whole alphabet 
after his name. 

“The building is certainly an eyesore, and before it 
came into being, Broxmouth was a real beauty spot. 
If you have ever been there, you will remember that 
fine walk along the edge of the cliffs, at the end of 
which there is a wonderful view as far as the towers of 
Barchester Cathedral. It is called the Lovers’ Walk, 
and is patronised by all the young people in the neigh¬ 
bourhood. They find it romantic as well as exhilarat¬ 
ing —the objective is usually Kurtmoor, where there are 
one or two fine hotels for plutocrats in search of rural 
surroundings, and where humble folk like you and I 


0 


32 THE OLD MAN IN THE CORNER 

and the aforesaid lovers can get an excellent cup of tea 
at the Wheatsheaf in the main village street. 

“But it is a daylight walk, for the path is narrow 
and in places the cliffs fall away, sheer and precipitous 
to the water’s edge, whilst loose bits of rock have an 
unpleasant trick of giving way under one’s feet. If 
you were to consult one of the Broxmouth gaffers on 
the advisability of taking a midnight walk to Kurt- 
moor, he would most certainly shake his head and tell 
you to wait till the next day, and take your walk in 
the morning. Accidents have happened there more 
than once, though Broxmouth holds its tongue about 
that. Rash pedestrians have lost their footing and 
tumbled down the side of the cliff before now, almost 
always with fatal results. 

“And so, when a couple of small boys hunting for 
mussels at low tide in the early morning of May 5th 
last, saw the body of a woman lying inanimate upon 
the rocks at the foot of the cliffs, and reported their 
discovery to the police, every one began by concluding 
that nothing but an accident had occurred, and went 
on to abuse the town council for not putting up along 
the more dangerous portions of the Lovers’ Walk some 
sort of barrier as a protection to unwary pedestrians. 

Later on, when the body was identified as that of 
Miss Janet Smith, a well-known resident of Broxmouth, 
public indignation waxed high; the barrier along the 
edge of the Lovers’ Walk became the burning question 
of the hour. But during the whole of that day the 
‘accident’ theory was never disputed; it was only 
towards evening that whispers of ‘suicide’ began to cir- 


THE MYSTERY OF DOG’S TOOTH CLIFF 33 

culate, to be soon followed by the more ominous ones 
of ‘murder.’ 

“And the next morning Broxmouth had the thrill 
of its life when it became known throughout the town 
that Captain Franklin Marston had been detained in 
connection with the finding of the body of Janet Smith, 
and that he would appear that day before the magis¬ 
trate on a charge of murder. 

“Properly to appreciate the significance of such an 
announcement it would be necessary to be oneself a 
resident of Broxmouth, where the Woodforde Institute, 
its affairs and its personnel are, as it were, , the be-all 
and end-all of all the gossip in the neighbourhood. To 
begin with the deceased was head matron of the insti¬ 
tute, and the man now accused of the foul crime of 
having murdered her was its secretary; moreover, the 
secretary and the pretty young matron were known 
to be very much in love with one another, and as a 
matter of fact Broxmouth had of late been looking for¬ 
ward to a very interesting wedding. The idea of 
Captain Marston—who, by the way, was very good- 
looking, very smart, and a splendid tennis player—be¬ 
ing accused of murdering his sweetheart was in itself 
so preposterous, so impossible, that his numerous 
friends and many admirers were aghast and incredu¬ 
lous. ‘There is some villainous plot here somewhere,’ 
the ladies averred, and wanted to know what Major 
Gubbins’ attitude was going to be under these tragic 
circumstances. 

“Major Gubbins, if you remember, was headmaster 
of the school, and, what’s more, he, too, had been very 


0 


34 THE OLD MAN IN THE CORNER 

much in love with Janet Smith, but it appeared that his 
friendship with Captain Marston had prompted him to 
stand aside as soon as he realised which way the girl’s 
affections lay. Major Gubbins was not so popular as 
the captain; he was inclined to be off-hand and dis¬ 
agreeable, so the ladies said, and, moreover, he did not 
play tennis; and with the sublime inconsequence of 
your charming sex, they seemed to connect these de¬ 
fects with the terrible accusation which was now weigh¬ 
ing upon the major’s successful rival. 

“The executive of the institute consisted, in addition 
to the three persons I have named, of its president, 
General Sir Arkwright Jones, who, however, took little, 
if any, interest in the concern. It seemed as if, by giv¬ 
ing it the prestige of his name, he had done all that 
he intended for the furtherance of the institute’s wel¬ 
fare. Then there were the governors, a number of 
amiable local gentlemen and ladies who played tennis 
all day and attended innumerable tea-parties, and knew 
as much about administering a big concern as a terrier 
does of rabbit-rearing. 

“In the midst of this official supineness, the murder 
of the young matron, followed immediately by the 
arrest of the secretary, had come as a bombshell, and 
now wise heads began to wag, and ominous murmurs 
became current that for some time past there had been 
something very wrong in the management of the Wood- 
forde Institute. Whilst, at the call of various august 
personages, money was pouring in from the benevolent 
public, the commissariat was being conducted on par¬ 
simonious lines that were a positive scandal. The 


THE MYSTERY OF DOG’S TOOTH CLIFF 35 

boys were shockingly underfed, and the staff of serv¬ 
ants was constantly being changed because girls would 
not remain on what they called a starvation regime. 

“Then again no proper accounts had been kept since 
the inception of the institute five years ago; books were 
never audited; no one, apparently, had the slightest 
idea of profit and loss or of balances; no one knew 
from week to week where the salaries and wages were 
coming from, or from quarter to quarter if there would 
be funds enough to meet rates and taxes; no one, in 
fact, appeared to know anything about the affairs of 
the institute, least of all the secretary himself, who 
had often remarked quite jocularly that he had never 
in all his life known anything about book-keeping, and 
that his appointment by the governors rested upon his 
agreeable personality rather than upon his financial 
and administrative ability. 

“As you see, the captain’s position was, in conse¬ 
quence of this, a very serious one; it became still more 
so when presently two or three ominous facts came 
to light. To begin with it seemed that he could give 
absolutely no account of himself during the greater 
part of the night of May 5th. He had left the institute 
at about seven o’clock; he told the headmaster then 
that he was going for a walk, which seemed strange, as 
it was pouring with rain. On the other hand the land¬ 
lady at the room where he lodged told the police that 
when she herself went to bed at eleven o’clock, the 
captain had not come in; she hadn’t seen him since 
morning, when he went to his work, and at what time 
he eventually came home she couldn’t say. 


36 THE OLD MAN IN THE CORNER 

“But there was worse to come. First, a stick was 
found on the beach some thirty yards or less from 
the spot where the body itself was discovered; and 
secondly, the police produced a few strands of wool 
which were, it seems, clinging to the poor girl’s hatpin, 
and which presumably were torn out of a muffler during 
the brief struggle which must have occurred when she 
was first attacked and before she lost her footing and 
fell down the side of the cliff. 

“Now the stick was identified as the property of 
Captain Marston, and he had been seen on the road 
with it in his hand in the early part of the evening. 
He was then walking alone on the Lovers’ Walk. Two 
Broxmouth visitors met him on their way back from 
Kurtmoor. Knowing him by sight, they passed the 
time of day. These witnesses, however, were quite sure 
that Captain Marston was not then wearing a muffler; 
on the other hand, they were equally sure that he car¬ 
ried the stick. They had noticed it as a very unusual 
one, of what is known as Javanese snake-wood, with a 
round, heavy knob and leather strap which the captain 
carried slung upon his arm. 

“Of course, the matter interested me enormously; it 
is not often that a person of the social and intellectual 
calibre of Captain Marston stands accused of so foul 
a crime. If he was guilty, then, indeed, he was one of 
the vilest criminals that ever defaced God’s earth. The 
poor girl, it seems, had been in love with him right up 
to the end, and according to some well-informed gossips 
the wedding-day had actually been fixed. 

“In the meanwhile the accused had been brought up 


THE MYSTERY OF DOG’S TOOTH CLIFF 37 

before the magistrate, and formal evidence of the find¬ 
ing of the body and of the arrest was given, as well 
as of the subsequent discovery of the stick, which was 
identified by the two witnesses, and of the strands of 
wool. The accused was remanded until the following 
Monday, bail being refused. The inquest was held a 
day or two later, and I went down to Broxmouth for it. 
I remember how hot it was in that crowded court-room; 
excited and perspiring humanity filled the stuffy atmos¬ 
phere with heat. 

“Louisa Rumble, who held the position of house¬ 
keeper at the Woodforde Institute, was one of the 
first witnesses called; and her evidence was intensely 
interesting because it gave one the first clue as to 
the motive which underlay the hideous crime. The 
woman’s testimony, you must know, bore entirely on 
the question of housekeeping and of the extraordinary 
scarcity of money in the richly-endowed institute. 

“ 'Often and often,’ said the witness, a motherly old 
soul in a flamboyant bonnet, 'did I complain to Miss 
Smith when she give me my weekly allowance for the 
tradesmen’s books. “ ’Tisn’t enough, Miss Smith,” I 
says to ’er, “not to feed a family,” I says, “let alone 
thirty growin’ boys and ’arf a dozen working girls.” 
But Miss Smith, she just shook ’er ’ead and says: 
“Committee’s orders, Mrs. Rumble. I ’ave no power.” 
“Why don’t you speak to the captain?” I says to ’er. 
“ ’E ’as the ’andling of the money. It is a scandal,” I 
says. “Those boys can’t live on boiled bacon an’ 
beans, and not English nor Irish bacon it ain’t neither,” 
I says. “Pore lambs! The money I ’ave won’t pay for 


38 THE OLD MAN IN THE CORNER 

beef or mutton for them, Miss Smith,” I says, “and 
you know it.” Rut Miss Smith, she only shook ’er 
’ead, and says she would speak to the captain about it.’ 

“Asked whether she know if deceased had actually 
spoked to the secretary on the subject, Mrs. Rumble 
said most emphatically ‘Yes’! 

“ ‘What’s more, sir,’ she went on, ‘I can tell you 
that the very day before she died, the pore lamb ’ad a 
reg’lar tiff with the captain about that there commis¬ 
sariat.’ 

“Mrs. Rumble had stumbled a little over the word, 
but strangely enough no one tittered; the importance 
of the old woman’s testimony was impressed upon every 
mind and silenced every tongue. All eyes were turned 
in the direction of the accused. He had flushed to the 
roots of his hair, but otherwise stood quite still, with 
arms folded, and a dull expression of hopelessness upon 
his good-looking face. 

“The coroner had asked the witness how she knew 
that Miss Smith had had words with Captain Marston. 
‘Because I ’eard them two ’aving words, sir,’ Mrs. 
Rumble replied. ‘I ’ad been in the office to get my 
money and my orders from Miss Smith, and we ’ad 
the usual talk about American bacon and boiled beans, 
with which I don’t ’old, not for growing boys; then 
back I went to the kitchen, when I remembered I ’ad 
forgot to speak to Miss Smith about the scullery-maid, 
who’d been saucy and given notice. So up I went again, 
and I was just a-goin’ to open the office door when I 
’eard Miss Smith say quite loud and distinck: “It is 
shameful!” she says. “And I can’t bear it!” she says. 


THE MYSTERY OF DOG’S TOOTH CLIFF 39 

“And if you don’t speak to the general then I will. 
He is staying at the Queen’s at Kurtmoor, I under¬ 
stand,” she says, “and I am goin’ this very night to 
speak with him,” she says, “as I can’t spend another 
night,” she says, “with this on my mind.” Then I 
give a genteel cough and—’ 

“The worthy lady had got thus far in her story when 
her volubility was suddenly checked by a violent ex¬ 
pletive from the accused. 

“ ‘But this is damnable!’ he cried, and no doubt 
would have said a lot more, but a touch on his shoulder 
from the warders behind him quickly recalled him to 
himself. He once more took up his outwardly calm 
attitude, and Mrs. Rumble concluded her evidence 
amidst silence more ominous than any riotous scene 
would have been. 

“ T give a genteel cough,’ she resumed with unruffled 
dignity, ‘and opened the door. Miss Smith, she was 
all flushed, and I could see that she’d been crying; but 
the captain, ’e just walked out of the room, and didn’t 
say not another word.’ 

“By this time,” the Old Man in the Corner went 
on dryly, “we must suppose that the amateur detec¬ 
tives felt that there never had been so simple a case. 
Here, with the testimony of Mrs. Rumble, was the 
whole thing clear as daylight; motive, quarrel, means, 
everything was there already. And at first, when Miss 
Amelia Smith, sister of the deceased, who lived with 
her, was called, her appearance only roused languid 
curiosity. Miss Amelia looked what, in fact, she was 
—a retired school marm, and wore the regular hall- 


4 o THE OLD MAN IN THE CORNER 

mark of impecunious and somewhat soured spinster- 
hood. 

“ ‘Janet often told me/ she said, in the course of her 
evidence, ‘that she was quite sure there was roguery 
going on in the affairs of the institute, because she 
knew for a fact that subscriptions were constantly 
pouring in from the public, far in excess of what was 
being spent for the welfare of the boys. I often used 
to urge her to go straight to the governors or even to 
the president himself about the whole matter, but she 
would always give the same disheartened reply. Gen¬ 
eral Arkwright Jones, it seems, had made it a condi¬ 
tion when he accepted the presidency that he was never 
to be worried about the administration of the place, 
and he refused to have anything to do with the handling 
of the subscriptions; as for the governors, my poor 
sister declared that they cared more for tennis parties 
than for the welfare of a lot of poor officers’ children.’ 

“But a moment or two later we realised that Miss 
Amelia Smith was keeping her titbit of evidence until 
the end. It seems that she had not even spoken about 
it to the police, determined as she was, no doubt, to 
create a sensation for once in her monotonous and 
dreary life. So now she pursed up her lips tighter 
than before, and after a moment’s dramatic silence, she 
said: 

“ ‘The day before her death my poor sister was very 
depressed. In the late afternoon, when she came in 
for tea, I could see that she had been crying. I 
guessed, of course, what was troubling her,, but I didn’t 
say much. Captain Franklin Marston was in the habit 


THE MYSTERY OF DOG’S TOOTH CLIFF 41 

of calling for Janet in the evening, and they would 
go for a walk together; at eight o’clock on that sad 
evening I asked her whether Captain Marston was 
coming as usual; whereupon she became quite excited, 
and said: “No, no! I don’t wish to see him!” And 
after a while she added, in a voice choked with tears: 
“Never again!” 

“ ‘About a quarter of an hour later,’ Miss Amelia 
went on, ‘Janet suddenly took up her hat and coat. I 
asked her where she was going, and she said to me: “I 
don’t know, but I must put an end to all this. I must 
know one way or the other.” I tried to question her 
further, but she was in an obstinate mood. When I 
remarked that it was raining hard she said: “That’s all 
right; the rain will go me good.” And when I asked 
her whether she wasn’t going to meet Captain Marston 
after all, she just gave me a look, but she made no 
reply. And so my poor sister went out into the dark¬ 
ness and the rain, and I never again saw her alive.’ 

“Miss Amelia paused just long enough to give true 
dramatic value to her statement, and, indeed, there 
was nothing lukewarm now about the interest which 
she aroused. Then she continued: 

“ ‘As the clock was striking nine I was surprised to 
receive a visit from the headmaster, Major Gubbins. 
He came with a message from Captain Marston to my 
sister. I told him that Janet had gone out. He ap¬ 
peared vexed, and told me that the captain would be 
terribly disappointed.’ 

“ ‘What was this message?’ the coroner asked, 
amidst breathless silence. 


42 THE OLD MAN IN THE CORNER 

“ 'That Janet would please meet Captain Marston 
at the Dog’s Tooth Cliff. He would wait for her there 
until nine o’clock!’ ” 

The Old Man in the Corner gave a short, sharp 
laugh, and with loving eyes contemplated his bit of 
string, in which he had just woven an elegant and com¬ 
plicated knot. Then he said: 

"Now it was at the foot of the Dog’s Tooth Cliff 
that the dead body of Janet Smith was found and 
some thirty yards further on the stick which had last 
been seen in the hand of Captain Franklin Marston. 
Nervous women gave a gasp, and scarcely dared to 
look at the accused, for fear, no doubt, that they would 
see the hangman’s rope around his neck. But I took 
a good look at him then. He had uttered a loud groan 
and buried his face in his hands, and I, with that un¬ 
erring intuition on which I pride myself, knew that he 
was acting. Yes, deliberately acting a part—the part 
of shame and despair. You, no doubt, would ask me 
why he should have done this. Well, you shall under¬ 
stand presently. For the moment, and to all unthink¬ 
ing spectators, the attitude of despair on the part of 
the accused appeared fully justified. 

"Later on we heard the evidence of Major Gubbins 
himself. He said that about seven o’clock he met Cap¬ 
tain Marston in the hall of the institute. 

" 'He appeared flushed and agitated,’ the witness 
went on, very reluctantly, it seemed, but in answer to 
pressing questions put to him by the coroner, 'and told 
me he was going for a walk. When I remarked that 
it was raining hard, he retorted that the rain would do 


THE MYSTERY OF DOG’S TOOTH CLIFF 43 

him good. He didn’t say where he was going, but pres¬ 
ently he put his hand on my shoulder and said in a 
tone of pleading and affection which I shall never for¬ 
get: “Old man, I want you to do something for me. 
Tell Janet that I must see her again to-night; beg her 
not to deny me. I will meet her at our usual place on 
the Dog’s Tooth Cliff. Tell her I will wait for her 
there until nine o’clock, whatever the weather. But 
she must come. Tell her she must.” 

“ ‘Unfortunately,’ the major continued, ‘I was unable 
to deliver the message immediately, as I had work to 
do in my office which kept me till close on nine o’clock. 
Then I hurried down to the Smiths’ house, and just 
missed Miss Janet who, it seems, had already gone 
out.’ 

“Asked why he had not spoken about this before, the 
major replied that he did not intend to give evidence 
at all unless he was absolutely forced to do so, as a 
matter of duty. Captain Marston was his friend, and 
he did not think that any man was called upon to give 
what might prove damnatory evidence against his 
friend. 

“All this sounded very nice and very loyal until we 
learned that William Peryer, batman at the institute, 
testified to having overheard violent words between the 
headmaster and the secretary at the very same hour 
when the latter was supposed to have made so pathetic 
an appeal to his friend to deliver a message on his 
behalf. Peryer swore that the two men were quarrel¬ 
ling, and quarrelling bitterly. The words he overheard 
were: ‘You villain! You shall pay for this!’ But he 


44 THE OLD MAN IN THE CORNER 

was so upset and so frightened that he could not 
state positively which of the two gentlemen had spoken 
them, but he was inclined to think that it was Major 
Gubbins. 

“And so the tangle grew, a tangled web that was 
dexterously being woven around the secretary of the 
institute. The two Broxmouth visitors were recalled, 
and they once more swore positively to having met 
Captain Marston on the Lovers’ Walk at about eight 
o’clock of that fateful evening. They spoke to him 
and they noticed the stick which he was carrying. 
They were on their way home from Kurtmoor, and 
they met the captain some two hundred yards or so 
before they came to the Dog’s Tooth Cliff. Of this 
they were both quite positive. Subsequently, when 
they were nearing home they met a lady who might 
or might not have been the deceased. They did not 
know her by sight and the person they met had her hat 
pulled down over her eyes and the collar of her coat 
up to her ears. It was raining hard then, and they 
themselves were hurrying along and paid no attention 
to passers-by. 

“We also heard that at about nine o’clock James 
Hoggs and his wife, who live in a cottage not very far 
from the Dog’s Tooth Cliff, heard a terrifying scream. 
They were just going to bed and closing up for the 
night. Hoggs had the front door open at the moment, 
and was looking at the weather. It was raining, but 
nevertheless he picked up his hat and ran out towards 
the cliff. A moment or two later he came up against 
a man whom he hailed; it was very dark, but he 


THE MYSTERY OF DOG’S TOOTH CLIFF 45 

noticed that the man was engaged in wrapping a muffler 
round his neck. He asked him whether he had heard 
a scream, but the man said: ‘No, I’ve not,’ then hur¬ 
ried quickly out of sight. As Hoggs heard nothing 
more, or saw anything, he thought that perhaps, after 
all, he and his missus had been mistaken, so he turned 
back home and went to bed. 

“I think,” the Old Man in the Corner continued 
thoughtfully, “that I have now put before you all 
the most salient points in the chain of evidence col¬ 
lected by the police against the accused. There were 
not many faulty links in the chain, you will admit. 
The motive for the hideous crime was clear enough; 
for there was the fraudulent secretary and the unfortu¬ 
nate girl who had suspected the defalcations and was 
threatening to go and denounce her lover either to the 
president of the institute or to the governors. And 
the method was equally clear; the meeting in the dark 
and the rain on the lonely cliff, the muffler quickly 
thrown around the victim’s mouth to smother her 
screams, the blow with the stick, the push over the 
edge of the cliff. The stick stood up as an incontestable 
piece of evidence. The absence from home of the ac¬ 
cused during the greater part of that night had been 
testified to by his landlady, whilst his presence on the 
scene of the crime some time during the evening was 
not disputed. 

“As a matter of fact, the only points in the man’s 
favour were the strands of wool found sticking to the 
girl’s hatpin, and Hoggs’ story of the man whom he 
had seen in the dark, engaged in readjusting a muffler 


46 THE OLD MAN IN THE CORNER 

around his neck. Unfortunately Hoggs, when more 
closely questioned on that subject, became incoherent 
and confused, as men of his class are apt to do when 
pinned down to a definite statement. 

“Anyway, the accused was committed for trial on the 
coroner’s warrant, and, of course, reserved his defence. 
He was brought up for trial the other day at the Bar- 
chester Assizes. In the meanwhile he had secured the 
services of Messrs. Charnton and Inglewood, the noted 
solicitors, who had engaged Mr. Provost Boon, K.C., 
to defend their client. 

“You know as well as I do what happened at the 
trial, and how Mr. Boon turned the witnesses for the 
Crown inside out and round about until they contra¬ 
dicted themselves and one another all along the line. 
The defence was conducted in a masterly fashion. To 
begin with, the worthy housekeeper, Mrs. Rumble, 
after a stiff cross-examination, which lasted nearly an 
hour, was forced to admit that she could not swear 
positively to the exact words which she overheard be¬ 
tween the deceased and Captain Mars ton. All that she 
could swear to was that the captain and his sweetheart 
had apparently had a tiff. Then, as to Miss Amelia 
Smith’s evidence; it also merely went to prove that 
the lovers had had a quarrel; there was nothing what¬ 
ever to say that it was on the subject of finance, nor 
that deceased had any intention either of speaking to 
the president about it, nor of handing in her resigna¬ 
tion to the governors. 

“Next came the question of Major Gubbins’ story 
of the message which he had been asked by his friend 


THE MYSTERY OF DOG’S TOOTH CLIFF 47 

to deliver to the deceased. Now accused flatly denied 
that story, and denied it on oath. The whole thing, he 
declared, was a fabrication on the part of the major 
who, far from being his friend, was his bitter enemy 
and unsuccessful rival. In support of this theory 
William Peryer’s evidence was cited as conclusive. Fie 
had heard the two men quarrelling at the very moment 
when accused was alleged to have made a pathetic ap¬ 
peal to his friend. Peryer had heard one of them say 
to the other: ‘You villain! You shall pay for this!’ 
And in very truth, the unfortunate captain was paying 
for it, in humiliation and racking anxiety. 

“Then there came the great, the vital question of the 
stick and of the strands of wool so obviously torn out 
of a muffler. With regard to the stick, the accused had 
stated that in the course of his walk he had caught 
his foot against a stone and stumbled, and that the 
stick had fallen out of his hand and over the edge of 
the cliff. Now this statement was certainly borne out 
by the fact that, as eminent counsel reminded the jury, 
the stick was found more than thirty yards away from 
the body. As for the muffler, it was a graver point 
still. Strands of wool were found sticking to the girl’s 
hatpin, and James Hoggs, after hearing a scream at 
nine o’clock that evening, ran out towards the cliff and 
came across a man who was engaged in readjusting a 
muffler round his throat. That was incontestable. 

“Of course, Mr. Boon argued, it was easy enough 
to upset a witness of the type of James Hoggs, but an 
English jury’s duty was not to fasten guilt on the first 
man who happens to be handy, but to see justice meted 



48 THE OLD MAN IN THE CORNER 

out to innocent and guilty alike. The evidence of the 
muffler, argued the eminent counsel, was proof positive 
of the innocence of the accused. The witnesses who 
saw him in the Lovers’ Walk on that fateful night had 
declared most emphatically that he was not wearing 
a muffler. Then where was the man with the muffler? 
Where was the man who was within a few yards of 
the scene of the crime five minutes after James Hoggs 
had heard the scream? The man who had denied hear¬ 
ing the scream although both Hoggs and his wife heard 
it over a quarter of a mile away? 

“ Wes, gentlemen of the jury,’ the eminent counsel 
concluded with a dramatic gesture, ‘it is the man with 
the muffler who murdered the unfortunate girl. If he 
is innocent why is he not here to give evidence? There 
are no side tracks that lead to the cliffs at this point, 
so the man with the muffler must have seen something 
or some one; he must know something that would be 
of invaluable assistance in the elucidation of this sad 
mystery. Then why does he not come forward? I say 
because he dare not. But let the police look for him, I 
say. The accused is innocent. He is the victim of 
tragic circumstances, but his whole life, his war-record, 
his affection for the deceased all proclaim him to be 
guiltless of such a dastardly crime; and, above all, 
there stands the incontestable proof of his innocence, 
the muffler, gentlemen of the jury—the muffler!’ 

“He said a lot more than that, of course,” the Old 
Man in the Corner went on, chuckling dryly to himself. 
“And said it a lot better than ever I can repeat it, but 


THE MYSTERY OF DOG’S TOOTH CLIFF 49 

I have given you the gist of what he said. You know 
the result of the trial. The accused was acquitted, 
the jury having deliberated less than a quarter of an 
hour. There was no getting away from that muffler, 
even though every other circumstance pointed to Mar- 
ston as the murderer of Janet Smith. 

“On the whole, his acquittal was a popular one, 
although many who were present at the trial shook 
their heads, and thought that if they had been on the 
jury Marston would not have got off so easily; but for 
the most part these sceptics were not Broxmouth 
people. In Broxmouth the captain was personally 
liked, and the proclamation of his innocence was hailed 
with enthusiasm; and what’s more, those same cham¬ 
pions of the good-looking secretary—they were the 
women mostly—looked askance on the headmaster, 
who, they averred, had woven a Machiavellian net for 
trapping and removing from his path for ever a hated 
and successful rival. 

“The police have received a perfect deluge of anony¬ 
mous communications suggesting that Major Gubbins 
was identical with the mysterious man with the muf¬ 
fler, but, of course, such a suggestion is perfectly ab¬ 
surd, since at the very hour when James Hoggs heard 
the scream, and a very few minutes before he met the 
man with the muffler, Major Gubbins was paying his 
belated visit to Miss Amelia Smith and delivering the 
alleged message. Even those ladies who disliked the 
headmaster most cordially had to admit that he could 
not very well have been in two places at the same time. 


50 THE OLD MAN IN THE CORNER 

The Dog’s Tooth Cliff is a good half hour’s walk from 
Miss Smith’s house, and the Lovers’ Walk itself is not 
accessible to cyclists or motors. 

“And thus, to all intents and purposes, the Cliff 
murder has remained a mystery, but it won’t be one 
for long. Have I not told you that you may expect 
important developments within the next few days? 
And I am seldom wrong. Already in this evening’s 
paper you will have read that the entire executive of 
the Woodforde Institute has placed its resignation in 
the hands of the governors, that the august personages 
have withdrawn their names from the list of patrons, 
and that though the president has been implored not 
to withdraw his name, he has proved adamant on the 
subject, and even refused to recommend successors to 
the headmaster, the secretary, or the matron; in fact, 
he has seemingly washed his hands of the whole con¬ 
cern.” 

“But surely,” I now broke in, seeing that the Old 
Man in the Corner threatened to put away his piece 
of string and to leave me without the usual epilogue 
to his interesting narrative—“surely General Sir Ark¬ 
wright Jones cannot be blamed for the scandal which 
undoubtedly has dimmed the fortunes of the Wood¬ 
forde Institute?” 

“Cannot be blamed?” the Old Man in the Corner 
retorted sarcastically. “Cannot be blamed for enter¬ 
ing into a conspiracy with his secretary and his head¬ 
master to defraud the institute and then to silence for 
ever the one voice that might have been raised in ac¬ 
cusation against him.” 


THE MYSTERY OF DOG’S TOOTH CLIFF 51 

“Sir Arkwright Jones?” I exclaimed incredulously, 
for indeed the idea appeared to me preposterous then, 
as the general’s name was almost a household word 
before the catastrophe. “Impossible!” 

“Impossible!” he reiterated. “Why? He murdered 
Janet Smith! Of that you will be as convinced within 
the next few days as I am at this hour. That the three 
men were in collusion I have not the shadow of doubt. 
Marston only made love to Janet Smith in order to 
secure her silence; but in this he failed, and the girl 
boldly accused him of roguery as soon as she found 
him out. It would be inconceivable to suppose that 
being the bright, intelligent girl that she admittedly 
was, she could remain for ever in ignorance of the de¬ 
falcations in the books. She must, and did, tax her 
lover of irregularities, she must have and, indeed, did* 
threaten to put the whole thing before the governors. 
So much for the lovers’ quarrel overheard by Mrs. 
Rumble. 

“I believe that the fate of the poor girl was decided 
on then and there by two of the scoundrels; it only 
remained to consult with their other accomplice as to 
the best means for carrying their hideous project 
through. Janet had announced her determination to 
go to Kurtmoor that self-same evening, the only ques¬ 
tion was which of those three miscreants would meet 
her in the darkness and the solitude of the Lovers’ 
Walk. But in order at the outset to throw dust in 
the eyes of the public and the police, and not appear 
to be in any way associated with one another, Marston 
and Gubbins made pretence of a violent quarrel which 


0 


52 THE OLD MAN IN THE CORNER 

Peryer overheard. Then Gubbins, in order to make 
sure that the poor girl would carry out her intention 
of going over to Kurtmoor that evening, went to her 
house, with the supposed message from Marston, and, 
incidentally, secured thereby his own alibi. This made 
him safe/’ 

“Marston, in the meanwhile, went to arrange matters 
with Arkwright Jones. His position was, of course, 
more difficult than that of Gubbins. If there was to 
be murder—and my belief is that the scoundrels had 
been resolved on murder for some time before—the 
first suspicion would inevitably fall on the secretary 
who had kept the books and who had had the handling 
of the money. The miscreants had some sort of vague 
plan in their heads, of this you may be sure. They 
were only procrastinating, hoping against hope that 
chance would continue to favour them. But now the 
hour had come, the danger was imminent. Within the 
next four-and-twenty hours Janet Smith, being prom¬ 
ised no redress on the part of the president, would 
place the whole matter before the governors—unless 
she was effectually made to hold her tongue. 

“We can easily suppose that Marston would be clever 
enough to arrange to meet Arkwright Jones without 
arousing suspicion. We do know that soon after he 
finally quarrelled with Janet Smith he walked over to 
Kurtmoor. The two witnesses who spoke with him 
stated that they met him whilst they themselves were 
walking to Broxmouth. It was then past eight o’clock. 
Arkwright Jones had either dined at his hotel or not; 
we do not know, for it never struck the police to in- 


THE MYSTERY OF DOG’S TOOTH CLIFF 53 

quire at once how the popular general had spent his 
time on that fateful evening. You know what that sort 
of unconventional seaside place is. People spend most 
of their time out of doors, and there would be nothing 
strange, let alone suspicious, in any visitor going out 
for an hour after dinner, even if it rained. 

“Then surely you can, in your mind, see those two 
scoundrels putting their villainous heads together, and 
as suspicion of any foul play would, of necessity, at 
once fall on Marston, Jones decided to take the hideous 
onus on himself. He went to the Dog’s Tooth Cliff to 
meet Janet Smith himself, and borrowed Marston’s 
stick to aid him in his abominable deed. He was clever 
enough, however, to throw it over the edge of the cliff 
some distance away from the scene of his crime. We 
do not know, of course, whether the poor girl recog¬ 
nised him, or whether he just fell on her in the dark; 
she gave only one scream before she fell. 

“They were clever scoundrels, we must admit, but 
chance favoured them, too, especially in one thing. 
She favoured them when she prompted Arkwright Jones 
to put a muffler round his throat. This one fact, as you 
know, saved Marston’s neck from the gallows. But 
for the strands of wool in the girl’s hatpin, and Hoggs’ 
brief view of a man manipulating a muffler, nothing but 
Jones’ own confession could have saved his accomplice. 
Whether he would have confessed remains a riddle 
which no one will ever solve. But as to the whole so- 
called mystery, I saw daylight through it the moment 
I realised that Marston’s despair and humiliation dur¬ 
ing the inquest was a pretence. If he feigned despair 


0 


54 THE OLD MAN IN THE CORNER 

it was because he desired temporarily to be the victim 
of circumstantial evidence. From that point to the 
unravelling of the tangled skein was but a step for a 
mind bent on logic.” 

“But,” I argued, for indeed I was bewildered, and 
really incredulous, “what will be the end of it all? 
Surely three scoundrels like that will not go scot free. 
There will be an inquiry into the affairs of the insti¬ 
tute; the governors—” 

“The governors have talked of an inquiry,” the 
funny creature broke in, with a chuckle, “but if you 
had any experience of these private charities, you would 
know that the first thing their administrators wish to 
avoid is publicity. The president of the Woodforde 
Institute had sufficient influence on the committee, you 
may be sure, to stifle any suggestion of creating public 
scandal by any sort of inquiry.” 

“But the question of the finances of the institute is, 
anyhow, public property now, and—” 

“And it will be allowed to sink into oblivion. The 
executive has resigned. Marston and Gubbins will 
leave the country, and everything will be conveniently 
hushed up.” 

“But Arkwright Jones—” I protested. 

“You see the papers regularly,” he rejoined dryly. 
“Watch them, and you will see—” 

I don’t know when he went, but a moment or two 
later I found myself sitting alone at the table in the 
blameless teashop. The matter interested me more 
than I cared to admit, but, for once, I was not alto- 


THE MYSTERY OF DOG’S TOOTH CLIFF 55 

gether prepared to accept the funny creature’s deduc¬ 
tions. 

Twenty-four hours later, however, I had to own that 
he had been right, when the following piece of sensa¬ 
tional news appeared in the Evening Post: 

“TRAGIC SEQUEL TO THE CLIFF MURDER 

“An extraordinary sequel to the mysterious tragedy 
of the Dog’s Tooth Cliff near Broxmouth occurred last 
night, when on the self-same spot where Miss Janet 
Smith met her death three months ago, General Sir Ark¬ 
wright Jones lost his footing and fell a distance of two 
hundred feet on to the rocks below. It was a beautiful 
moonlight evening, and the tide being low a number of 
visitors were down on the beach at the time; but those 
who immediately hurried to the general’s assistance 
found life already extinct. The distinguished soldier, 
who will be deeply mourned, must have been killed on 
the spot. Now, indeed, general public opinion, as well 
as every inhabitant of Broxmouth, will bring pressure 
to bear upon the Borough Council to see that a suit¬ 
able barrier is erected along the dangerous portions 
of the beautiful Lovers’ Walk. The double tragedy of 
this year’s season renders such an erection imperative.” 

I was probably the only reader of that paragraph 
who guessed that the once distinguished soldier had 
not come accidentally by his death. No doubt the 
police had followed up the clue of the man with the 


56 THE OLD MAN IN THE CORNER 

muffler, and were actually on the track of the mis¬ 
creant, when the latter, guessing that exposure was 
imminent, preferred to put an end to his own miserable 
life. 

I have since heard from friends at Broxmouth that 
Marston has gone to the Malay States, and that 
Gubbins is doing something in Germany. Curious 
creature Marston must have been! Imagine, after 
Jones had returned from his infamous errand and told 
him that the hideous deed was done, imagine Marston, 
walking back to Broxmouth along the Lovers’ Walk 
in the rain and the darkness, past the Dog’s Tooth Cliff, 
at the foot of which the body of the murdered girl lay! 
I wonder what would be the views of the Old Man in 
the Corner on the psychology of a man with nerve 
enough for such an ordeal. 


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